Stick a heavy-duty suction cup near each of the two top corners of the glass panel.

To attach the suction cups, first position the suction cup with the movable handle parallel to the face of the glass panel (as highlighted in the second picture).

While lightly holding the suction cup against the glass, raise the movable handle until it is parallel with the other handle (as highlighted by the third picture).

If your suction cups refuse to stick, try cleaning both the glass panel and the suction cup with a damp soft, lint-free cloth. (Dampen with distilled water, and if needed, an equal ratio of distilled water and white vinegar for best results.)

Do not use the suction cups to carry the display glass because if one of them fails to stick, you could drop the screen and break it.

The original iMac box makes a good place to store the glass panel. Otherwise, a padded horizontal surface, like a towel on a desk will do nicely.

Yes, you don't need the specific suction cups to remove the display cover - it's held on by magnets, and if you start at the center by the iSight you can work out to the edges and remove it. I had an iPhone screen suction cup around and it helped with balancing the screen when you pull it out fully, but by no ways is it required.

Great guide and pretty straight forward the only thing that took me ages and I didn't manage to undo were the power btn cable (step 28) and the thermal sensor (step 25) Seemed like they were glued on! Very difficult to remove and obviously conscious so I didn't break anything!

Then, i did not take out the whole display and left it in the hinges on the bottom side and held it up with two small cardboard boxes. Easy enough to disconnect the hdd then.

I replaced with an ssd, put that into a ssd enclosure. Had to drill an extra hole in it to fasten the pins that hold it in place.

Used Carbon Copy Cloner to make an image from the old hdd, with the sad connected via usb. Checked it of it booted via System Preferences > Startup Disk. It worked so the took the imac apart and replaced the disk. Booted, everything was working as always, only faster!

My display data cable forks, with a smaller section going up near the camera board. Where it forks, it is attached to the aluminum plate that attaches around the cpu board. I haven't seen any images that look similar, and I'm stumped at how to remove this second section of the cable. 2010 i7 build to order

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Gently lift the glass panel perpendicular to the face of the LCD enough to clear the steel mounting pins attached along the underside of the top edge of the glass panel.

Pull the glass panel away from the lower edge of the iMac and carefully set it aside.

Don't use the suction cups to carry the glass panel—if either one loses its grip, the panel could fall and break.

After setting the glass panel down safely, be sure to release the suction cups, as the suction force over time, can crack the glass.

During reinstallation, be sure to meticulously clean the inside of the glass panel and the face of the LCD as any dust or fingerprints trapped inside will be annoyingly visible when the machine is turned on.

Reassembly: After powering on and running for a few minutes, found a large whitish patch on the screen. Persists after powerdown.

Turned out to be condensation, though it didn't look like it - more like fine white powder rubbed in. Humidity is very high this time of the year. Fix: start airconditioner in a room, leave it running a while, take iMac in, prise open the glass again. Condensation vanishes instantly. Keep it out for a ~15 minutes running infinite loops to get iMac nicely heated up and fans running. Snap glass back.

I used a Swiffer dry cloth to get all the dust off the screen while just blowing with my mouth at a steep angle. I know I didn't get every speck, but the screen looks perfect once assembled and lit again. Removing the glass from the screen is pretty easy if you need to re-clean it.

I strongly recomment to detach the suction cups while working at the rest of the steps. In my case after half an our i heart a crack noise behind me on the table... The vacuum of one of the suction cups braked the glass! maybe there should be a warning in the Repair guide

I didn't crack the screen, but it popped out of the shims and then popped back in, as if the glass edge is magnetic or has steel in it to connect to magnets. Be careful with this step — it is pretty nerve-wracking, but doable!

You need a big clean surface free, or at least 2 or more free surfaces because the iMac, the glass and the LCD display are quite bulky. You'll also probably need space for a tablet or a laptop to read this guide while you are working. And don't forget room to work on the optical unit and for the tools you are going to use. I covered a large table with a double layer of bubble wrap. In my opinion it's better to put the glass face down to limit powder sticking on the internal surface.

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Due to tight tolerances, you will have to use a thin hooked tool to lift the display out of the outer case. As seen in the third picture, we made one out of a bent paperclip.

Use a thin hooked tool to lift one side of the top edge of the display by its steel outer frame.

After lifting the top edge of the display on one side, hold it out of the outer case while you use a hooked tool to lift the other side. A pencil or pen can be placed under the top edge of the display, parallel to the top edge and extending past the edge of the computer, to keep the first side propped up while lifting the second.

Do not lift the top edge of the display out of the outer case too far, as several short ribbon cables still connect the two components.

Be very careful not to hook the Bluetooth antenna cable while you're lifting the display out. It's hiding under the top left corner of the iMac. I managed to snag mine with the paperclip and ended up pulling the antenna cable clean out of the tiny gold connector. Some very precise reconstruction work was required to get the cable seated in the connector again and back up to full signal strength.

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Use a pair of tweezers to pull the vertical sync ribbon cable out of its socket on the LED driver board near the top left corner of your iMac.

On some iMacs this may not be a ribbon cable but four separate, very fine and very fragile wires. Be very careful, if the tweezers slip off the plug, you will very likely pull a wire out of the assembly.

I had a friend with me so all I did was disconnect the vertical sync ribbon cable, and I had my friend hold up the LCD for a couple of minutes as I swapped out my HDD with an SSD, thus avoiding steps 6-9 and going straight to step 10.

After removing the display, I noticed a high pitched whine coming from the machine, different loudness for different levels of display brightness. Reading up on it, it seems that the problem is with the vertical sync cable (and this is a well-known issue with Apple with new machines, too). So be careful when reinserting this cable!

I noticed that the vertical sync cable seems to have been updated since the guide was produced. It now has a more normal plug and socket and 'regular' wires instead of the flat ribbon cable shown here. I used narrow nosed pliers instead of tweezers to unclip it as I was afraid that just pulling on the wires could have broken them.

WARNING: Take extreme care when removing these wires as mine were not a ribbon cable but individual tiny wires. I removed them cautiously with tweezers OK but when re-inserting, one of the wires came off. Obviously someone had been in here before.

I changed the HD yesterday and when I reinstalled the Display I had the same problem then Peter Sinclair. I started to panic first. But then I reinstalled the Pannel without re-insterting the cable at all and nevertheless my iMac works perfectly since 14 hours now. I'm really confused!

My vertical sync ribbon cable had two of the four contacts bent back, it may even have been like this originally. I straightened them out as best I could under a magnifying glass, and after reinserting, everything is working OK. Seems this cable is not particularly critical. Also, I used needle nose pliers for this and the other connectors, I can't get enough grip with tweezers.

Tweezers didn't work for me due to the angle and lack of grip (they kept slipping and I was concerned about squeezing any harder). I just used my fingers to grab the connector as close to the connection as possible for both removal and insertion and it worked just fine. I have big hands and meaty fingers, so this method should work fine for anyone.

I have a late 2009 27" Mac and did something similar to Gabe, but being alone, after unplugging the vertical sync cable, I used two wooden chopsticks to hold the screen at about 45° and without disconnecting any more cables I could quite easily access the Superdrive to remove and replace with a 240GB SSD with help from a caddy from TheNatural2020, which required a tiny modification.

All in all it took me about 45 minutes and was much easier than expected. It is working at a negotiated SATA speed of 3 Gbps Some report a speed of only 1.5 Gbps, but from what I had read before purchasing the Crucial M500, going for a 6 Gbps SSD is worse on a late 2009 Mac as it has to default to the basic SATA 1 speed of 1.5 Gbps, while the slower 3 Gbps SATA II drive works at 3 Gbps. The time from the Apple logo till the sign-in screen on startup has gone from 33.5 seconds to 8.5 secs, and my internal hard drive is a 7200rpm

Thanks for this suggestion! I didn't have chopsticks, but was able to use some pens instead. The pens are shorter, but still provided sufficient room for my tools to get to the screws holding the HD. I noticed there are two large, thumb size, indentations in the frame under the LCD that the pens fit into nicely. Since I did the repair by myself, this really sped up the process and I was able to complete the HD swap and memory addition in about 25 minutes. (I had planned 2 hours. Happy, happy, happy!)

I had to open and close the iMac several times as each time some of the cables was not properly connected: The vertical sync, the display data cable connector, even the Bluetooth antenna was off at some point and I had to re-open every time! Finally I left the vertical sync cable disconnected as with each operation it was in very bad condition and impossible to plug in. I'm amazed at how bad designed is this cable and how easy is to break it! It's nice to know that they improved it, poor technicians.

I'd like to replace it in the future but I really don't know how or if it is available in its more up-to-date version… I didn't feel like dissasembling everything again to see how is it connected.

The portion of this little cable that plugs into the receptor is stiffer than the rest of the cable, but it is very slippery. For me, it was also very tight. Tweezers and fingers just slipped right off of it. Fortunately, I didn't tear the cable. I ended up using needle-nose pliers wrapped with cellophane to get traction. It was also very difficult to reinsert. By raising the display to the maximum level with all the other cables connected, I was able to push it in with my fingers.

Also: if you get any smudges on the display, a lens pen works great to remove them. I used a swiffer to pick up dust.

I opened the case as far as I could without stretching this cable and used my fingers to get it. The end of the ribbon where it connects is stiff, so you can grab it there. There's not connector; the stiff part just slides in and out. Getting it back in is a pain, but if you get the perfect angle it slides back in without much force.

Pull the cable AWAY from the connector. Some cables have a plastic connector cap attached to the end. This one does not. The cable just slips out as if pulling a stick of gum out of a package. I used my index finger and thumb, no tweezers needed.

I also plugged it out with my fingers, got more feeling in them. Put it in the same way. There is no barb or something on the cable, so this should be quite safe when not using too much force. And I also used chopsticks to keep the display up, just like an engine hood.

I found step 6 the most difficult of the whole procedure. The way I unclipped the connector was from the front, with my thumbnail. There's a little ridge over which the cable clicks tight. If you use your thumbnail to lift the connector over that ridge, you can then easily remove the cable. (Maybe iFixit should that advise to the guide, since especially step 6 is a bit too concise imho.)

Agreed with previous comment :You should be very careful after step 5 - it may be necessary to do the step 7 before the step 6 because the connector on the motherboard for the LCD data is very very fragile. I broke it and found that a lot of people broke it as well .

I just spent 100€ at the Mac shop to learn this: when reattaching the display data cable be sure you get the ends right. Even if the cable fits perfectly the other way round, the computer won't even start.

NOTE! The internal video connector on the logic board is quite fragile - proceed with extra care when disconnecting. There are many postings of Mac users who have broken the display connector and are then left with quite a challenging proposition to replace it. Here is the link to one such thread: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.p....

Ditto. It is very fragile. Mine pulled off the motherboard while doing the upgrade (all else went well). Problem occurred because I tried to do the drive swap without removing the display. I had someone hold it up for me. Display is heavy and you can't feel the tug of the cable. Disaster.

The repair is beyond most computer repair folks. Found these guys http://www.dttservice.com/ and they are great. For $195 they fixed it in 24hours.

I ran into a big problem with step 7: my display data cable did not have any sort of plug to connect to the logic board. Instead, the cable seemed to be soldered onto the board or simply run under this small copper-colored band. There was no plastic plug to detach/attach.

I was afraid to pull on the cable and break something, so I simply had a friend hold up the LCD and I replaced the logic board without removing the display. I'm not sure what I would have done if I needed to replace the drive.

Has anyone else run into this issue where the display data cable doesn't have a plug? And are there alternative ways to detach it safely?

@fronesis - on my iMac it wasn't possible to pull out the connector at first. There was a small rectangular metal clip which locked the connector in place - this had to be pulled up first, and then the connector came out extremely easily.

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Lift the display for enough clearance to disconnect the LCD thermal sensor cable connector from its socket on the logic board.

If your fan is spinning full speed after completion, check this connection or the hard drive's thermal sensor cable. The thermal sensor connector socket is very fragile, so be very careful when you connect back the sensor cable.

Be very very careful when you pull out this plug as it is extremely fragile and also reattaching the LCD thermal sensor plug and very very gently ensure that the pins are actually going into the connector before you push the plug in. i damaged the top part of the plastic housing which then made it difficult to insert the plug into the connector. I can't believe how easy it was to damage this connector!! If you don't attach the LCD thermal sensor plug correctly the Mac fans will go crazy at full speed. It took a good 15 minutes to get the pins to finally go into the plug and they can bend easily.

This was too tight to get with my hands. I used needle nose pliers to grab the plastic connector and it popped right out. I need pliers to get it to snap back in too. The wire itself if very thin so be sure to only grab the connector.

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Before disconnecting the thermal sensor cable, take note of its orientation. It is extremely important to reinstall the connector in the current orientation so the fans will not run at full speed. If you have multiple pins on your replacement hard drive, put the connector closest to the SATA connections and closest to the PCB board.

Disconnect the thermal sensor, SATA power, and SATA data cables by pulling their connectors away from the sockets on the hard drive.

I just put a 2 TB WD (WD2001FASS) Black in a 27″ iMac. I had issues with the hard drive fan staying on and the system showing the thermal sensor wasn't working. I tried the pin a number of ways but I finally figured out I had to have the connector closest to the SATA connection and the black wire had to be on the board side (toward the LCD).

Thanks so much for this comment! I was going nuts trying to figure out why the fan was going crazy despite my using the same brand drive. I flipped the connector over and plugged it back into the drive with the black cable nearest the display. Problem solved.

I can confirm the same for the WD 1TB (WD1003FZEX). I too had to turn the sensor cable 180° and insert it into the socket with the black cable facing up (i.e. towards where the LCD would be) in order to solve the fan speed issue.

Thank you for the very useful info. I installed a WD10EZEX Hard Drive the fans blasted. I did flip the thermal cable 180 degrees - black wire up towards LCD closest to the SATA cable. I can conform this worked. Thank you again with out your help I would be looking for software solution.

Speaking of the thermal sensor, I just bought 2 2tb internal HDD (Hitachi Deskstar 3.5 and a seagate barracuda green) and both of them have different thermal sensors. Baraccuda is 4 pin, and Hitachi is 2 pin. the pics of the stock western dig looks like it has 6 pins, from a video I saw online of this. I want to trade out my hard rive myself, but I don't want to #$&@ it up, so any suggestions or comments would be greatly appriciated ( I have a 2007 27in 2.66 i5)

I put a 1.5 TB seagate barracuda in (before that there was a 1 TB seagate barracuda). but my fans stay on 4000 rpm. the connector in my machine can only go in one way, so i can't change connections like Philomathius wrote. the connection on the drive is the same: 4 pins, the cable has only 2.

This step is somewhat important if you want to use the thermal sensory with a multiple pin style drive. My comment is to just read the instructions a few times before and make sure you use the two pins that are in the top row on the side of the SATA cable.

I hate to say this guys, because this guide is really well put together and has been helpful, but I am a little furious at the fact that I bought the recommend Western Digital HDD #WD10EZEX to replace in my mums iMac and the HDD doesn't even have a port to fit the thermal sensor pins in. It just has 8 pins for inserting a jumper. After finishing the process and fitting the new HDD it doesn't even notice that it's there upon boot. I can't see it being an issue with the iMac (however I will now have to take it apart again just to confirm and troubleshoot) but why would you recommend something that doesn't fit the bill?

.

Speechless.

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If this an error on my behalf and anyone could help I would be very grateful, otherwise I'll have to sell the HDD and buy another...

That HD should work great. If it's not showing up at all then there is another issue in play. Most of the older WD drives had a cutout for the jumper cable. The new ones don't so just remove the extra clip on the iMac's thermal sensor cable.

I just added a 3TB Seagate Barracuda Drive (ST3000DM001) and an 1TB Samsung 840 EVO SSD Drive, and haven't had any fan issues. You have to know, that every HDD seems to have a different connector for the temperature. The original HDD was a 2 TB Hitachi drive, the temp. connector wouldn't physically fit in the Seagate Drive. I ordered another cable at AppleComponents.com. There was only one way it would fit and has worked like a charm.

Excellent guide! I just replaced the Seagate Barracuda disk in a 2010 27" iMac and didn't have any problems at all - certainly no issues with the HDD temp sensor. It definitely pays to research what model of disk you buy. The hardest part for me was reconnecting the incredibly short vertical sync cable. Thanks guys!

Apparently I bought the wrong disk for my late 2009 Imac. The disk was supposed to be a Seagate and the one I replaced it with was a Toshiba. The new Toshiba only has 2 pins in in the termal sensor. Now my fans are going crazy. Has anybody had the same issue?

I have 2010 iMac Core i7 27 and after two hard drive failures and reformats I replaced the original HD which was a WD1001FALS-40Y6A0 1TB TAHOE 655-1567A with a brand new WD Blue 1TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD10EZEX, but when I boot from the DVD to reinstall it does not show up in the drive list. The cables are all connected exactly as they were to the original HD.

My questions are

1) Is there some Apple specific firmware on the original drive ?

2) is there a known specific reason why the new drive is not working correctly

Interesting idea, having installed the HD and using a DVD to boot and trying to reinstall the OS X, I am never presented an option to format the HD. How would I go about formatting the HD which the OS running from the installation DVD does not seem to know exist? Is there some disk formatting software accessible via the installation DVD or in some ROM that I can access somehow?

Formatting the drive is the key. In my case I was lucky enough to recognize that my internal drive was going south and installed OS X on an external drive and booted from that until I was able to swap out the internal drive. After the swap, I also encountered the same problem of the installation software not seeing the new drive. Simply doing a quick format of the new, internal drive solved that and I was able to install OS X on the new drive and get up and running in relatively short order. If you don't have access to Leopard installation disks, you might want to consider picking up an inexpensive 1 TB portable drive (unless you have one you can use for this purpose) and finding a friend with an iMac and install OS X on the portable. That will give you a boot medium with which you can get started. A bit clunky to be sure, but it should do the trick.

I'm sorry to say that you all staring blindly down the wrong path.. :/

When you jump the two pins that the thermal sensor cables are connect to in the HDD's *JUMPER BLOCK*, the HDD limits it’s transfer rate to 1.5 Gbits/sek.. -This is a kind of safe mode, reducing heat generated from the HDD when your iMac is running hot. -And in the same breath, the reason your fans are running haywire if the terminals aren’t connected to the right pins..

All you need to do is:

1# Read the datasheet on your “to be installed” HDD.

2# Connect the thermal sensor wires, to the pins that limits your new HDD’s transfer rate.

(One way to do it if the connectors don’t match, is by separating the terminals from the connector and heat shrinking some heatshink around the individual terminals before connecting them to the pins.. -It’s a fiddly task but not impossible. Just use a needle to pry up the little hooks that holds the terminals in place in the connector)..

weird, I replaced my Seagate (iMac late 2009) HDD with a new Samsung 850 evo. After having problems with the screws I finally could "screw" them in. But now in the new SSD I can only put 2 cables instead of 3 before (guess it is the thermal cable for the fan). Now what do I with that cable? Nobody had the same problem?

According to info I'd read, as long as you stick with the same mfgr as the OEM it would work. Not true. I stuck with WD black but because it was a SATA III 6Gb throughput it wasn't recognized. Installed a Samsung 1Tb 850 Evo and it worked without a hitch. The WD works fine as an external through USB. 7 Years makes a difference in what will and won't work.

was there a possibility to connect the thermal sensor cable to the Samsung 850 EVO? How did you resolve the problem martin stettler posted (missing thermal sensor cable connector on the Samsung 850 EVO)?

When I changed my drive my new one did not have the pins to attach the thermal sensor. So my fans howled at me. I tried software fixes, but they did not react to temperature. you could just set the fans spinning lower, but you had to guess if that was enough... Not a very good solution.

The vertical sync cable took a bit of looking at but it really does just pull out tho had to use pliers to get enough purchase. From there just propped the display up with a DVD case at each end which gave enough clearance to remove the drive. All sweet from there on in. Reinserted the sync cable ok but need to use tweezers to hold some of the case screws in place to overcome the magnets.

I guess I am one of the lucky ones with an original Seagate drive. I upgraded to the 2t HDSS, also from Seagate. The install was painless and the thermal sensor fit exactly as it did on the old drive. From start to finish, the entire process took about an hour. Very quiet iMac now.

Thanks so much. Really useful guide especially when read in conjunction with http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/... . I swapped over a replacement HDD reasonably easily. The HDD formatting stage was straightforward using the Imac as a Target (hold T at startup) using Disc Utility on my MacPro as the host via Firewire. The problem came when I tried to use the original installation disc. Usually pressing C or even option (alt) at startup should find the optical drive but it kept spitting out the disc and a folder with a question mark flashed at me. My workaround was to use Disc utility to create a copy of the installation disc on an 8 GB flash drive (presumably a USB would have done as well) and boot from that by holding C at startup. Worked right away. Thanks again

Just did this replacement on a 2009 27" iMac. Went great, except that the fan ran @ max speed -- even after buying the same model drive and replacing the temp cable exactly according to a photo I took during disassembly. Bummer, but $35 for the HDD Fan control software at http://www.hddfancontrol.com/ solved the problem in 10 secs, so well worth it. Thanks so much for this guide!

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While putting the system back together, I recommend untaping and removing the vertical sync cable from the back of the led screen. Plug it back into the LED Driver board and then into the back of the screen. Reapply the tape and continue reassembling as normal. It is far easier to plug it back into the screen than into the driver board through such a small gap.

My hd failed and i used this guide to replace it with the same model. The problem i'm stuck with now is installing os x again. The installation starts and goes on for a while, while the hard drive makes a weird clicking noise. Then randomly the installation fails and asks to try again. I've done this ten times now.

I'm not here to rant though, i've some useful tips as well.

Instead of buying suction cups, i used a vacuum cleaner inserted into the back of a plastic container to create more pressure per inch. Also used duct tape on edges of the container to create more friction and not damage the glass. Although later i noticed you could wedge the sharp edge of a knife between the glass and the case and widen the gap with a fingernail, then pull the glass out completely.

A note when you're buying screw drivers... The ones with the interchangeable bits won't reach the screws on the lcd, so be prepared to fiddle with strips of paper and screws falling into the sides!

I wanted to add a quick note to this after completing my HDD replacement.

As I was going though my reinstall of the OS I got an hardware error because of the disconnected special cable that apparently is used for the fan controls as mentioned in other posts here. Everything works fine though because I took the advice upfront to install HDD Fan Control. Until I installed HDD Fan Control the fans did rev up faster than normal. But it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting or had heard/read. Once installed it took over the fans perfectly. I tweaked the defaults speeds a bit and off I went to restore my data.

I can't thank you all enough for sharing your wealth of information. The breakdown of the iMac and replacement went perfectly due to all the information and additional notes of experience. Thanks. I look forward to doing more repairs now, instead of dreading them.

I had a spudger - which was of great help getting the display off, and also in guiding the scews in when reassembling - the magneic clips on the display were annoyingly grabbing the screws, and the spudger made all the difference in keeping them from adhering to the nearest magnet.

Also - when levering out the display, instead of the corners, I found one of the steel tabs holding the magnets at the top was easier to lever out a little and then get ahold of.

Another tip - if you can, when you lay this flat, do so such that the base of the mac is facing away from you, and get some good directional lighting - a desk lamp, right into where you will be disconnecting/reconnecting the fiddly display wires. The HDD is a doddle once the display is off.

Apple uses proprietary thermal sensing firmware included on drives they ship - if you install a stock drive you'll need to install this software - or something else - to use the standard heat sensing system on most drives.

I followed this guide with a 2011 iMac and ended up with my fan pegged at 4000rpm - I installed the HDD Fan Control software and it instantly went back to normal.

In this guide, the first step should be to identify which make of drive is currently installed. If it's Seagate, install a Seagate drive. Ditto WD or Hitachi. I have one that's got the Seagate cable and I am putting in a 2TB SSHD and will report back on if I have the fan issue.

After upgrading RAM, I recently added a new harddrive to replace the original rumbling 1Gb Seagate. I installed one of the new hybrid drives from Seagate (in this case 2TB) and it is not only very fast but almost silent. I can certainly recommend it. No Fan issues if you install the cables carefully.

I used this guide to the letter, and everything worked perfectly for me. I bought all my supplies from iFixit- the suction cups, the hard drive, even the 54 bit Driver kit. The long narrow screw driver in the kit made it easy to remove the screws. I guess the only thing I had to supply was the paper clip and the screen cleaner. I was really glad this guide was here to help me fix my $2000 anchor when my hard drive crashed.

This is a great guide; I have a comment for the lazy/fearful. What I did is installed Mac OS on an external drive (LaCie Firewire), plugged it in the back, and that has become my hard drive. I'm sure it's slower than it should be, but works just fine for my needs (telecommuting, streaming media, internet, etc.). The old, dead hard drive is still stuck inside the iMac, and there it will remain...

How did you get OS on your external drive? My iMac is the only Mac computer I have and it's completely dead. I don't have another computer to hook up to my LaCie to download the OS to....any suggestions?

I used a clean dry 3" wide watercolor wash brush, which I have utilized for other instances such as getting dust off color transparencies. You just need to go very lightly all the way across until you see no more dust, which can sometimes take a dozen or so swipes. I was thinking of using canned air but the brush works fine. They cost about 3 bucks at an art supply store.

Thank you, iFixit. Without the guide I wouldn't have a nice new SSD in my late 2009 iMac. One suggestion. It would help a LOT if each step in all the guides that involves a connector showed or described how the connector is to be disconnected. For those of us not familiar with all the different kinds, it's sometimes NOT obvious whether to pull UP or OUT, whether or not there is a lock release of some sort, etc. The LCD thermal sensor cable connector (Step 10) was particularly tough, because it is small and the wires are thin and it would be easy to break them (it pulls toward the end where the wires exit the connector, but use something to grab the connector, rather than pulling on the wires!)

Great guide. I followed it but found after removing the logic board there was no secondary sata port!!! Either way I hooked up the original hard drive to power and temp sensor to stop the fan spin up and used the sata for the SSD so works great. One problem! My sound is now greyed out? Any physical reason for this? When the imac powers on it makes a sound but no sounds in Mac OS. I feel it must be physical not software related.

the optical replacement caddy is required in order to fit an SSD as the SATA connector which plugs into the optical drive is smaller and will not naturally fit your SSD!! I couldn't see this mentioned in this guide.

Also to confirm I ended up replacing the main hard drive with a SanDisk 256GB Extreme II drive and to prevent the constant fan noise problem if you fit a spare 2pin thermal sensor by unplugging the original hard drive sensor it does actually work! I managed to salvage a spare thermal sensor from an old iMac from the optical drive and plugged it in and it works a treat!!

If you are looking to replace the existing factory fitted hard drive with an SSD and you have a 2 pin thermal sensor - like one out of an old iMac's optical drive unit (or a spare ordered online) you can easily use this and replace the factory fitted hard drive thermal sensor. Be very careful as this connector can be fragile but place the replacement thermal sensor on top of your SSD and secure down with sticky tape. Works a treat! The iMac's fan's do not spin at full speed and you don't need any software to control the fan speed. The iMac is truly fooled :-)

I would like to mention that I was terrified of having to open my 27" iMac. I mean really, suction cups? Fragile tiny wires that you have to remove when the display is open about an inch? Yikes! As it turns out, if you ever had to work inside a Mac SE30 you can definitely do repairs on an iMac. Same cramped spaces but better design.

Thank YOU all so much for this guide and comments. Took me two weeks to get up the courage to open my iMac. Watched videos read and reread everything. My iMac now has a beautiful 2TB Seagate Barracuda Hybrid (ST2000DX001) drive in it. I replaced a Seagate 1TB that died. So when considering replacement drives this one seems to be working just fine. It's been on for 24 hours no fan problems. Woohoo!

Hi Cyndee, do you have an EMC 2309 or 2374 and did you needed some extra thermal sensor (like one from OWC)? I have an iMac Late 2009, i5 2.66 GHz and bought the same ST2000DX001 as you for this. I am worried about the fan.

Get the OWC thermal sensor. I didn't initially, and all the fans were working overtime the whole time. I tried software fixes, but they didn't work well enough. I eventually (months later) bought the OWC thermal sensor, re-opened my mac and installed. it. I'm back to having a pleasant, quiet mac.

Great guide, but I think I screwed it up - I installed a new hard drive, no problem there, and I gently pulled out The Vertical sync ribbon. When I tried to put it back in, the 4 small metal connector folded up like tape! I I very gently straightened them out and reattached it, (and I reattached everything else by the instructions) but when I tuned the power on, the Screen lit up for a brief moment then turned off. I could hear whirring inside, but cannot get it to boot up. I wondered if I need a boot disk or something but I am pretty sure I did something wrong reassembling... Can anyone help???

I completed all steps easily and with no hassles using these straight-forward instructions and succeeded in replacing my iMac's old HD for a new superfast 1Tb SSD. Can't thank you enough! I was pretty insecure but all went well.

Hi cantata, do you mind sharing some of the details? Which SSD did you choose, did it fit out of the box or did you need a kit, how did you tackle the thermal sensor issue or did you use fan control software? Thanks!

Woo hoo! It worked for me. Well, that is it worked after I realized why the screen was not turning on (I had missed plugging one of the cables back in). The restore from the Time Machine worked great and now I'm up and running on a 3TB drive. Woo hoo!

Great guide, It worked perfect for me. Thanks a lot! I appreciated a second persons help to hold the lcd screen to a safe distance while I was unplugging the connectors so I could see what I was doing. A good but silly tip to control the magnetic force when screwing back the LCD is to reach the hole holding the torx screw with tweezers to place it in the correct position

Maybe I should have been reading the comments or edits before I started but I was unaware of the incompatibility of the thermal sensor with most new drives :-/. Fortunately, after little research, I found SSD Fan Control (exirion.net) ! There's a few hardware hacks or workarounds but I didn't really find if they would work w/ my particular model (2309). Anyway, the app works great, check it out if you need it! Hopefully it will continue to do so.

Otherwise, great guide, as usual!!! This site, has once again, saved my Mac and saved myself TONS of money! Spent $175 in 2 HDD's and tools as opposed to $1700+ on a new 27" iMac! Cannot even describe how good that feels.

Excellent guide. when I turned my mac back onto after installation it showed the folder with question mark symbol..The new HDD must be formatted for mac to recognise it (mac journalled GUID partition) I couldn't get disk utility off my original installation CD as my optical drive died years ago so turned a USB into a bootable drive, downloaded yosemite installed it as an installer, when I plugged it into my mac and held down C on startup I was overjoyed to see the apple. from here I erased the seagate HDD reformatted it to mac journalled and created a GUID partition, went back to installer followed the installation process and it was easy sailing form there!! Thank you!! and instead of using suction cups to take the screen off I used high tac duct tape.

I have a IMAC 27" 2.66 GHz (late 2010) with Seagate 1T harddisk. The harddisk stopped working end of August 2015. I replaced it with a new Toshiba 1T purchased from IFIXIT. I formatted the hard disk and installed the OS X 10.6.8 snow/Leopard without any problem and following the guide here.

Now every 5 seconds there is a very annoying sound like dripping water sounds like its coming from the new harddisk.

Thank you very much for this good guide. I did it. I have upgraded my iMac - late 2009 (i5, 2.66 GHz, 11.1, 27") - to a new SHDD Seagate ST2000DX001 with 2TB. It was necessary because my old HDD (Seagate ST31000528ASQ) has got a failure in SMART-System. That was a real problem, I wasn't able to upgrade to El Capitan. Although I worried about the fan problematic, I can't recognize any problems with it. The fan runs absolutely normal. I didn't bought/used any third party solution like one from OWC. Just switched the 3 cables in the same way as by the original HDD. Now the HDD performance is also much better (factor ~1x-1.5x).

Excellent guide. I got it done in half an hour without any problem. The important thing is to read all the precautions and comments from others who are reading this. Most important, it would save you all the trouble by doing your homework: finding out which make of HD the original one is and use a matching one. Mine was a 1TB Seagate ST31000528ASQ of an 2009 iMac 11,1. The current Seagate replacement is ST1000DM003. I can confirm that it works and the thermal sensor fits without any problem. Another reader recommended a video guide which is also good but in there it is slightly confusing as they used a customised kit the company sold. But the overall opening and reassembly are very useful. I too did not open the whole thing, just disconnect the v-sync cable and used a pair of chopsticks. Works like a charm.

Yet I have a problem / or question: I wanted to replace my original HDD (1 TB, 3.5" mechanic) with a 2.5" SSD which doesn't have any connector for the thermal sensor cable .... :( what can I do here? .... don't know if I need to connect it at all or is there another solution for this?

This Guide was so easy to follow and made it so seamless in taking out the Hard Drive of the Imac 2374 that i was working on. I will definately be using the Ifixit guides again especially if they have a guide for something that I am working on. So Thank you to who ever made this guide you made my life so much easier

Just did on a 2009 27" imac. Went great, except that the fan ran @ max speed -- even after buying the same model drive (in a bigger size) and replacing the temp cable according to a photo I took during disassembly. $35 for HD an control solved the problem in 10 secs, so well worth it. Thanks so much for this guide!

So I've installed a new hybrid HD, triumphed over the WD/Seagate sensor cable issue, and got the thing together and powered up. But I can't, you know, get the thing working. I have a Snow Leopard CD and thumb drive, and I can get to the gray screen with an apple on it using both, but after that, nothing: the thumb drive went to a blue screen and then a screen of digital garbage, while the CD is just sitting on the gray screen, 15 minutes and counting. Thoughts?

The old drive was pretty much trash, so cloning it was a non-option. But should I put it in an external USB enclosure and try a recovery boot from that?

OK, I'm not sure what was wrong with the Snow Leopard drive and disk, but making a bootable USB drive for El Capitan as explained in the link below appears to have worked beautifully. The drive is currently restoring from backup, so maybe I shouldn't count chickens, but it sure looks like everything is going well.

Oh, and: the guide was great, but Step 5 was difficult/scary, because I wasn't clear what was going to happen (unless I did it wrong, what happened was that the ribbon cable came out with no sort of plug at all; when I reinstalled, I just slid the ribbon back in and it seems to be working.

Instructions were excellent, thanks. I wanted to add that I did just a simple HD swap from the factory installed Seagate 1TB drive to a new Seagate 2TB "Firecuda" hybrid solid-state/hard drive. What was interesting was that I had read horror stories that my fans would spin up unless I installed software to control them, installed a hardware adapter to control them, or put in an Apple ROM factory drive. I did not do any of these (figuring I could install software later) and the new FireCuda was plug-and-play. The little jumper-bus that the Apple thermal sensor wire plugs into on the old drive is on the new Firecuda, and it seems to work fine (no high speed fans) without any additional effort on my part. Excellent.

Hi I installed an ssd instead of the original hdd but there's no connection for the fan control on the ssd... I was wondering could I take the circuit board off the old hard drive I took out and tape it to the new ssd drive I installed an d hook up the fan control cable back up to to old board if that would work in getting my Fan to shut off as it just runs all the time without that connector being hooked up.

I have a late 2009 iMac 27". The 1TB HD was replaced by Apple a few years ago as a part of the replacement program. Lucky me ... it failed again. I just have a tick, tick, tick. I have another iMac so I made a bootable SD card and the 27" iMac booted fine. I plan to replace the drive but I want to get the correct one. In reading a bit it seems that I need to know what's brand I currently have but I can't determine that becuase of the failure.

Can I order one of the seagate 2TB SSD 3.5" hybrid drives and will it work? Any help would be great ... (I'd prefer not to open the machine just to determine HD make before ordering)

Hello! I successfully replaced the drive, thank you for that. But being that I can't see as well as I used to I kind of messed up the: "vertical sync ribbon cable out of its socket on the LED driver", I attempted to re-build it with scotch tape and all seemed to be fine... now it would seem that my graphics card is damaged... can I get that ribbon anywhere? there seems to be 5 sets of vertical lines when the machine first boots, and then some Digital boxes all over the screen.

I finished installing the new HD and now im not sure how to reinstall osx. when i start up it turns on normal until a folder with a question mark appears. already tried holding the command and r button during boot up but still get the folder with the question mark.

If you are alone this is very good. But get another person and a mini ratchet set that will hold the torque bits etc. you can have one person tilt the screen forward from the top, and not have to remove any cables etc., while the other uses the ratchet to undo the two screws that hold the HD in place and you can swap in the new one in 15 minutes.

I was able to relate the hard drive just doing steps 1-5, & 10-15 and propped the monitor up with two pieces of wood dowels about 8 inches long. The dowels fit into the two metal indents on the back side of the display and on the aluminum housing. I didn’t have to remove all the connectors and was able to remove and replace the hard drive quicker… This is the second time I replace a hard drive in this type of Mac. I was able to lose the screws to the hard drive and cables without affecting the other cables…

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